Examining a crisis communication void

Crisis and emergency risk communication lessons from the Elk River spill.

BACKGROUND Modern concepts of human resource management (HRM) must address the psychological and social risks that influence professional performance. Crisis communication strategies are increasingly recognized as essential for maintaining workforce effectiveness, emotional well-being, and resilience. This study aims to analyze the impact of crisis communication on HRM effectiveness, focusing on psychological regulation mechanisms, socio-psychological foundations, and onboarding practices that shape employee engagement, loyalty, and productivity. MATERIALS AND METHODS A qualitative and conceptual analysis of contemporary HRM literature and crisis communication models was conducted. The study reviewed existing theoretical frameworks, strategic HRM approaches, and performance metrics that capture employee engagement and emotional states. Key HRM practices, including onboarding and socio-psychological support mechanisms, were examined in the context of modern organizational challenges and wartime conditions. RESULTS The findings demonstrate that effective crisis communication significantly improves HRM outcomes by ensuring timely information delivery, fostering team stability, and supporting employees’ psycho-emotional well-being. Onboarding was identified as a critical factor influencing employee loyalty and performance. A model for optimizing crisis communication was developed, emphasizing strategic alignment, resilience-building, and the integration of emotional intelligence (EI) analytics to enhance workforce productivity. CONCLUSION Crisis communication is a vital component of modern HRM strategies, particularly in environments characterized by uncertainty and social-psychological risks. By strategically applying communication models, organizations can strengthen employee adaptability, engagement, and productivity. Targeted investment in emotional intelligence analytics is recommended to further refine HRM practices, improve organizational resilience, and maintain a positive psychological climate within teams.

ABSTRACTThe prescriptive approach to crisis communication strategy (CCS) selection has long been criticized for lack of flexibility and adaptability. To address this issue, this study proposes an emergent approach to strategy formulation by focusing on contextual impacts on social media crises and their implications for CCS. An online discussion on Sina Weibo, a Chinese microblogging platform, about a high-profile homicide in a McDonald’s restaurant, is taken as the case. Based on a multidisciplinary theoretical framework that consists of the theory of rhetorical arena and framing theory, an inductive framing analysis of 100 top forwarded posts indicates a complex negotiation process among multiple crisis communicators through various crisis frames. The results suggest that selection of CCS should be from contextually based behavior through investigating interaction among multiple crisis communicators and examining the contexts in which crises are situated. This study also contributes to advancing the CCS selection model of Situational Crisis Communication Theory by integrating contextual factors.

This review analyses the use of memes as a messaging strategy for resilience and crisis communication. Memes utilise the viral nature to convey messages rapidly and efficiently when employed as a communications tactic. This makes memes an essential tool in marketing strategy for resilience and crisis communication. This review is underpinned with the Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT), which was developed by W. Timothy Coombs. Memes have evolved into powerful communication tools capable of conveying complex emotions, ideas, and social commentaries with remarkable speed and reach. They can quickly spread messages, counteract misinformation, and foster a sense of community among those affected. Memes have demonstrated their value in resilience communication by offering a platform for expressing shared experiences and fostering emotional connections. They empower individuals and communities to cope with adversity, using humour and relatability to make complex concepts more accessible. Memes contribute to the promotion of resilience by reinforcing social bonds and enabling people to find solidarity in difficult situations. Their capacity to resonate culturally and emotionally ensures that they remain relevant and impactful in digital communication. As the digital landscape continues to evolve, the role of memes in engaging audiences, building community, and promoting resilience will likely become even more pronounced, solidifying their place as central tools in both crisis and resilience communication strategies. It was concluded that memes are essential marketing strategy tools for resilience and crisis communication.

Stealing thunder as a crisis communication strategy in the digital age

Crisis management at General Motors and Toyota: An analysis of gender-specific communication and media coverage

This study examines the influence of digital communication transparency and public trust on crisis communication effectiveness in local governments in the MENA region, with public engagement as a mediator. Using a quantitative approach and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) with data from 228 respondents, findings indicate that while transparency enhances public engagement significantly, trust alone does not directly boost engagement. Public engagement plays a vital mediating role, strengthening the effects of both transparency and trust on communication effectiveness. These results suggest that MENA governments should prioritize strategies fostering public participation alongside transparency to improve crisis communication outcomes. By actively engaging citizens, governments can enhance crisis management, strengthen public trust, and achieve more effective communication. This study contributes to the literature by underscoring the critical role of public engagement in crisis communication strategies.

An organization's survival during a crisis often depends on its speed of response. The introduction of social media into crisis communication discourse has meant that organizations must revisit their crisis communication strategies. This chapter explores a content analysis of the integration of social media platforms into crisis communication based on a comprehensive review of eight purposively selected crisis studies conducted globally. Findings revealed that Facebook and Twitter are increasingly employed as platforms for crisis communication. It was also discovered that responding to crises promptly, and engaging with the publics before, during, and after crises are crucial to managing organizational reputation. Social media platforms are also capable of spreading mis(information) about crises. Thus, organizations are advised to fully integrate and adopt social media into their crisis communication plans. This chapter extends our understanding of how social media platforms contribute to crisis communication discourse.

Purpose: This study analyst the crisis communication strategies implemented by two major local Indonesian beauty brands, Azarine and The Originote, as both represent significant cases of overclaim crisis with a large digital audience base. The study primarily focuses on the application Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) to understand crisis communication responses chosen by each brand. Additionally, the study seeks to determine the effectiveness of this approach in maintaining public trust. Methods: This study uses a descriptive quantitative approach with content analysis methods. Data was collected from official brand posts on Instagram and TikTok during the crisis period. Crisis communication strategies were classified based on the SCCT model. The coding process was carried out manually by two experts to ensure the accuracy of the categorization. Findings: Azarine tends to minimize attribution of responsibility through a combination of denial, justification, compensation, and ingratiation. Meanwhile, The Originote emphasizes acknowledgment of mistakes and commitment to improvement through justification, compensation, ingratiation, and apology. The analysis results indicate that Azarine strategy is more effective in maintaining brand reputation stability and preserving public trust during the early stages of a crisis, while The Originote strategy has a greater impact on long-term image recovery through a more open and accommodating approach. Originality: This study expands SCCT by applying to overclaim crises in the Indonesian beauty industry within the context of marketing communication. This context remains under-researched, and the study examines its implications for recovering public trust in digital environments.

The 2013 Central European floods were not only one of the most severe natural disasters in Austria in the last decades, but also constituted a landmark in crisis communication. For the first time, social media and online newspapers were important news channels, creating a need for new crisis communication strategies. Based on 20 semi-structured interviews and an analysis of online data, we reconstruct in this chapter the online communication of different stakeholders such as the authorities, rescue organisations and journalists during this emergency situation. The study shows that the use of social media was a weak point in official crisis communication. Through detailed analyses of information flows and the requirements of different stakeholders, the study reveals new challenges and possibilities for crisis communication in the digital age.

Purpose: This work analyzes how decoupling is used by offending companies in response to environmental crisis incidents in the Latin American context. Ethical implications and its links to legitimacy are considered.Design/methodology/approach: The research relies on a multi-case study approach, where four major environmental incidents involving four natural resource companies in Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, and Argentina are analyzed. By examining public sources, the crisis communication processes performed by these companies are studied in order to allow for the linking of theory and practice.Findings: Results obtained suggest that, in an attempt to defend their legitimacy, companies deliberately conveyed untruthful messages and decoupled their communication in crisis from reality, resulting in ethical concerns for the practice of both crisis management and crisis communication.Research limitations/implications: By emphasizing the link between legitimacy and communication in crisis scenarios, the study illustrates how decoupling (i.e., untruthful communication practices) can be performed as a crisis management strategy. However, due the constraints of case studies, it is acknowledged that the paper has limitations for generalization.Originality/value: This work identifies four different decoupling-based crisis communication strategies performed by companies, and the way these are accompanied with secondary strategies. Furthermore, by focusing on Latin America, the study reflects the potential impact that the geographical context may have on the company’s crisis communication strategy and ultimately its legitimacy.

ABSTRACTEffective crisis communication is important for governments to mitigate the impact of disasters and maintain public trust. This study examines the Chinese government's social media crisis response during the 2021 Zhengzhou rainstorm, developing a government crisis frame model to analyze 10,036 Weibo posts across 73 government accounts. The findings reveal three dominant framing strategies: Disaster Reporting and Information Updates, Leadership and Disaster Relief, and Achievement, which collectively highlight institutional competence and phased progress to cultivate public confidence. Additionally, the government strategically amplified emotional appeals through the Human Interest and Encouragement frame, fostering collective political emotions and social cohesion, while the Severity frame appeared far less frequently. Notably, while the Inviting the Public frame had the strongest communication effect, it was the least utilized. The association between the government sector and effect is relatively weak and becomes insignificant after controlling for follower count and crisis stage. While the government level significantly and positively influences the communication effect, provincial‐municipal differences were marginal, reflecting that high economic capital enables municipal media to achieve autonomy comparable to provincial actors. These results reveal the Chinese government's strategic use of social media to achieve integrative consensus and collective resilience. This research provides empirical evidence of the Chinese government's crisis communication strategies on social media and offers a methodological framework for analyzing government crisis responses in the digital era, contributing to the broader discourse on political communication.

This paper examined the use of hedging in information subsidies about the Anglophone Crisis. More specifically, it sought to determine which hedging devices were used in government information subsidies about the crisis, establish the discourse and communication functions of these hedges, and determine the crisis response postures reflected through hedging. The paper adopted a documentation and records method to obtain 83 information subsidies (speeches, communiques, reports, policy statements, media statements or ‘outings’, press releases, press conference presentations, press kits, etc.) from twelve government institutions. These twelve institutions were purposively chosen because of their centrality to the government’s crisis communications about the Anglophone Crisis between October 2016 and December 20. Nvivo was used for content analysis of information subsidies. Quantitative and qualitative methods of data analysis, presentation and discussion were used. The study identified six categories of hedging devices which served varied discourse and communication functions. For example, approximators and rounders were used to distance the government from particularly controversial claims about key crisis issues; while contrastive conjunctions served to highlight support for government crisis management strategies, protect government credibility, and diminish the amount of crisis responsibility attributed to the government. Conditionals were used to express beliefs, claims and stances about Anglophone Crisis events in a way that restricts potentially controversial interpretations. Plausibility and attribution shields reduce the force of government crisis managers’ claims by signalling uncertainty towards crisis messaging content and attributing particular crisis-related beliefs or commitments to other stakeholders. These findings show the role of hedging in crisis communication about the Anglophone Crisis. Given the divergence in crisis response postures reflected, this study recommends greater synchrony in the use of hedging devices.

As the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the world, requiring emergency management by health authorities and providers, it created flow-on crises and “crisis contagion” for organizations ranging from international airlines and tourism operators to local businesses, schools, and universities. In addition to the risks directly associated with the health emergency, many organizations were plunged into crisis because of severe restrictions to their operations and income losses. This analysis examines crisis communication in an organization faced with major financial losses, staff redundancies, and disruption. It analyses how these and necessary crisis responses were communicated to stakeholders, using situational crisis communication theory (SCCT), as its analytical framework. While noting alternative perspectives such as crisis and emergency risk communication (CERC) theory, SCCT is identified as the most widely applied theory of crisis communication, and thus warrants ongoing review in an era of media fragmentation, disinformation, and low public trust. Furthermore, this analysis provides a relatively rare “inside” (emic) perspective through ethnography and autoethnography conducted by a senior decision-maker in the organization studied, which expands traditional outside (etic) perspectives and offers new insights into crisis communication.

Strategy Map for the Crisis Communication